Vote online http://dcmp.bc.edu for a new Vice-Chair, Councillor, and two Members-at-Large.

The Executive Committee through its "chairs" stewards APS March meeting involving dozen APS units. Duties include revising sorting categories, guiding selection of invited symposia, organizing the sort of contributed abstracts into coherent sessions. The DCMP seeks to avoid conflict between topics of invited and contributed sessions and to schedule related sessions in the same rooms over meeting.

The Executive Committee as a whole selects the DCMP invited talks using only member-submitted nominations.

The members-at-large serve as DCMP Fellowship Committee, sending their recommendations to APS Fellowship Committee and then APS Council.

The Executive Committee works to improve understanding of condensed matter physics by Congress, funding agencies, K-16, and public. March meeting features letter writing campaign to Congress. See educational material at http://dcmp.bc.edu. Send suggestions or coments to dcmp@bc.edu.

For every vacancy there are two nominees who have agreed to serve. DCMP members are encouraged to nominate candidates. On-line procedure eases securing fifty co-nominators to ensure presence on ballot.

With world-wide changes, any person going needs to make sure of free entry and exit. The DCMP and APS March Meeting webpages (see two under 'Newsletter' in headline) will have information for all participants.

All US citizens and holders of green cards need a current passport.

Anyone in USA on F-1/J-1 visa needs current addenda in their passport.

Anyone from abroad, coming only to Montreal, should check entry/exit rules to Canada from their country.

Being selected an APS Fellow is restricted to 1/2 percent of the membership in any year. For those nominated thru DCMP that means ~25 per year. Actual approval is by the APS Council upon the recommendation of APS Fellowship Committee.

Competitive nominations require some care. Full details can be found by clicking Fellowship link on main APS webpage on downloading forms.

Here are some tips.

Like any proposal, the title and abstract are important. In this case, the title is a one or two line endorsement indicating "exceptional contributions." The abstract is a supporting paragraph "enlarging on the citation and indicating the originality and significance of the contributions cited." These can be supplemented by a list of at most 8 publications and 10 other contributions such as invited talks, patents or professional service.

The committees (DCMP Members-at-Large and APS one) will also carefully look at the complete vita and publication list, together with lists of invited talks, awards, service and organization of conferences. Please don't send copies of the papers.

To assemble the information the candidate can be very helpful.

The two sponsors' nominating letters can be supplemented by a maximum of two additional letters to round out the arguments for your candidate. The better known and more hands-off these supporters are, the better.

The deadline for nominating Fellows through the DCMP is January 16. Consider whether some other unit might be a more appropriate venue, such as DCOMP, DMP, DPOLY or FIAP. Each unit has a different deadline timed to the operation of their fellowship committee.

In 1952 AT&T Bell Laboratories endowed an APS prize in memory of its 1940-51 president, Oliver E. Buckley. This prize recognizes and encourages outstanding theoretical or experimental contributions to condensed matter with a $5,000 prize and certificate. See http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/buckley.cfm for overview, nomination details, and recipients.

The American Physical Society Council has set a goal for all major prizes to award $10,000. In keeping with the prestige of this prize that recognizes dramatic contributions to the field of condensed matter physics, the APS is launching a campaign to increase the endowment to provide a $10,000 prize. The DCMP Executive Committee supports this goal and asks its members to consider contributing; see https://apps.aps.org/dcgi/donation. [Note: requires APS userid and password for obscure reason. Original donor was not APS member!]

The articles and opinion pieces found in this issue of the APS Division of Condensed Matter Physics Newsletter are not peer refereed and represent solely the views of the authors and not necessarily the views of the APS.